by Lauren Smith
“Having a good time so far?” Vain asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Oh yes, sir!” She had completely forgotten she was talking to a dom.
He waved a hand. “It’s fine. I’m not that strict. Here, let me get you a new drink, something a little stronger than water. You’ll need it if she decides to come back later when I’m not around.” He leaned over the bar and grabbed one of the bottles of scotch and an empty glass.
“Thank you, sir.” Callie turned her focus back to the room, watching the doms and subs curiously while Vain prepared her a drink.
“Here, drink it up.” He pressed a glass with amber liquid in it into her hand.
She raised it to her lips and downed the whole glass. Then coughed. The drink burned like fire.
“Whoa, easy.” He patted her back.
“Sorry.” She gasped and set the glass on the counter.
“A beautiful woman should never apologize.” He chuckled and walked away.
Callie left the bar and headed back to Katrina and Royce.
“Hanging in there, little cowgirl?” Royce teased. He had put Katrina on his lap and she was kissing his neck and licking his ear. Royce groaned and palmed Katrina’s ass.
Callie ducked her head, too embarrassed to look. She was a little tired and wanted Wes to come back. She knew he was busy keeping his eye on the Monet, though, the real reason they were there tonight.
“Feeling tired?” Royce asked her.
“Yeah, I guess it’s been a long day. Do you think Wes would get mad if I just took a quick nap here on the couch?” She tucked her knees up and curled into the soft, warm sofa cushions.
“No, he won’t. Go ahead, I’ll keep an eye on you,” Royce promised.
“Thanks.” She folded her arms on the armrest and then put her chin on her arms and closed her eyes. Just a short nap, that’s all she needed…
She sensed him before she heard him. The warm breath on her face and the heat of his body as he leaned over her. It was a struggle to open her eyes. She was still tired, but his voice stirred her awake. Her skin tingled where he touched her, his palm brushing her hair as he whispered her name.
“Callie, darling, time to wake up.” Wes stroked a hand over her hair.
“What? How long was I asleep?” She blinked rapidly, slowly trying to bring Wes into focus. Her stomach gave a strange little twist, almost like a cramp, and her head felt a little fuzzy.
Wes was leaning over her. He’d removed his suit coat and his sleeves were rolled up. Her throat went dry and a pulse began to beat between her thighs. He looked sexy as hell and seeing him so informal only reminded her of the pleasure in his arms. Wes was an addiction, one that would never be cured.
“You’ve been asleep for an hour. Royce didn’t want to wake you. The club is closing soon.”
Brushing her hair back from her face, she sighed. “I’m sorry, Wes.” When she sat up, the world spun around her in dizzying circles.
“Are you okay?” He picked her up off the couch and set her on her feet. That only made it worse. Everything spun around her even faster and a wave of nausea made her buckle over.
“Wes…I don’t feel so good.” She clutched at her stomach, moaning. Everything seemed to be spinning and she couldn’t catch her breath.
“You have had a stressful day. Let me take you home.” He caught her behind her knees and back to lift her into the cradle of his arms.
The jarring movement of his steps made her sick, so she closed her eyes again, hoping to quell the sudden sickness. Her blood pounded hard in her ears and the entire world swayed around her like she was the one off balance. It was hard to think. Panic swept through her as she fought to stay awake.
“Just rest.” Wes’s distant voice came to her through a dark tunnel thick with fog.
“Wes, I can’t…move.” The last word was barely a whisper, one she could barely breathe. He hadn’t heard her. She was…fading into darkness.
* * *
The tires of the Hennessey Venom GT screeched to a halt inside his garage as Wes threw the car into park and launched himself out of the driver’s side. He shouted for his butler as he wrenched the passenger-side door open and bent over Callie. She was unconscious and had been for a while—how long, he wasn’t sure. Her exhaustion and disorientation in the club were a warning he’d almost ignored. When she’d passed out completely in the car and became unresponsive, his trepidation had increased.
Arms around her limp body, he lifted her into his embrace and called for Bradley again, his voice ragged as he clutched her tighter to him. His legs moved of their own volition until he found himself in the room they’d made love in earlier that week. The warmth of that memory was overridden by a blind panic he couldn’t quell.
Callie didn’t stir as he carried her. No murmur from her soft lips to tell him she was still here, still with him—just silence that was swallowed by a wave of pure fear.
“Bradley!” he shouted. His butler didn’t answer. That was unusual. Where the fuck was Bradley? He had the uncanny ability of always being present whenever Wes came home, but not tonight.
Wes settled Callie on the couch and put a pillow under her head, then brushed his hand over her face. Her forehead was cool to the touch and a fine sheen of perspiration coated her skin. Something was wrong with her…He headed for the intercom and pressed the button.
“Bradley, I’m in the old study. I need you straight away. Callie is sick.”
Sweat coated his palms and blood pounded in his ears. He turned back to Callie and pulled his cellphone out of his pocket. He was going to call an ambulance. She could have food poisoning or the flu. She needed immediate medical attention.
A familiar clicking noise from behind him froze him in place. He knew that noise, heard it in his nightmares.
A gun being cocked. Then there was only that roaring silence, broken only by the uneven breath escaping his lips.
“Put the phone down,” a cold voice instructed.
Wes slowly lowered the phone, his heartbeat racing. Each beat hit him as hard as a cannon. He’d been caught off guard. Every single lesson Hans had taught him didn’t matter now. It was too late. He’d sworn twenty-five years ago that he’d never be careless, never let his enemies find a way to get to him. But he’d grown careless. He’d been lost in his obsession with Callie and hadn’t seen the danger until it was too late. A metallic taste filled his mouth as he struggled to fight off the panic. Callie needed him to survive this so he could save her.
“Here’s how this is going to go. You give me the real Monet and I’ll tell you what she’s been poisoned with so you might be able to save her.”
“Poisoned?” The word escaped his lips through gritted teeth.
“Yes. I thought you might need the proper motivation to cooperate. Slipping her something in her drink while I was at the club was an easy solution. How does the saying go? Only fools fall in love? Consider yourself a fool.”
The confirmation that Callie had been poisoned hit Wes in the stomach, a quick jerk of his body involuntarily loosened his grip on the phone and it crashed to the floor with a dull thud. He didn’t care about the phone. All he cared about was Callie—his one darting glance down showed her unmoving body on the couch, pulling at his insides like a black hole. He would do anything to save her.
“Turn around and face me.” The voice, so dead and cold, was almost silky, like the skin of a snake.
He did as he was told and faced the man who’d threatened the only one who truly mattered in his life.
“It’s you?” He couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t Thomas Stonecypher. He’d thought it had to be. No one else had a grudge against Wes like he did. No one, except…God, I’m a fool. How did I not see what was right in front of me?
Stephen Vain III stood in the doorway and held a Beretta, aiming at Wes’s chest. He wore all black and his hands were gloved.
“Hello, Wes.” He flashed a crooked smile and leaned against the doorjamb, relaxing now that Wes
was facing him.
“Vain, what are you doing?” Wes asked.
“Getting revenge.” Vain shrugged. “I lost the Camden board position because of you. The auction house was perfect to clean the money—after all, who would suspect a world-class auction house was trafficking stolen goods? After you recommended Peter Wells to the board, he got appointed and convinced the other members to make me resign. I couldn’t maintain the lifestyle I’d grown accustomed to, not when fencing the art became that much harder. I lost my advantage—and that means I lost a lot of money. Someone has to pay for that. What a shame for you to have to get so close to her, eh?” Vain waved the gun toward Callie’s prone form, his cocky attitude riling every violent instinct inside Wes to attack, but he held still. Saving Callie was his priority and he couldn’t do that if he didn’t know what Vain had given her. “But if it hadn’t been her, it would have been someone else you loved, like that sister of yours.”
Wes’s fists clenched at his side. “Tell me what poison you gave Callie.”
Vain ignored him and suddenly glanced down the hall. “I’m here.” He spoke to someone outside the study.
Wes tensed, prepared for another man with a gun. But it was Corrine. She joined Vain and kissed his cheek before looking at Wes.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re surprised.” She smirked, and the iciness of her eyes sliced him to the bone. “I never really wanted you. It was only your art. Speaking of which, where is the Monet, Wes?”
“Back at the club.” He clenched his hands into fists, afraid to move. He shot a glance at Callie on the couch. “Go back to the Cuff and take it. I don’t care. Now tell me what you gave Callie.”
“She doesn’t have much time left,” Corrine added gleefully as she studied her watch. “Now stop lying to us. I heard you talking in the barn today. I know the real Monet is not the one you sent to the club.”
“The clock is ticking, Wes. The Monet or your woman. You can save only one.” Vain flicked his gun barrel at Callie.
Only one? The one piece of art he’d protect at all costs. It was an easy choice. Callie was the only masterpiece that mattered. Everything else he owned could be given away in an instant, so long as Callie was still his, and still alive. Needing her above all else was deeper than an instinct, deeper than any basic urge to have her. Like a light shining through heavy storm clouds, he understood that now. She didn’t exist to complete his soul, to make him a better man. No, he existed to complete her, to give her everything in her life and make her dreams come true. It was his true purpose, the direction his life had meant to go and Vain would not rob Callie of her future.
He was going to kill Vain and Corrine if anything happened to her.
“I have to take you to the Monet.” He reached slowly into his coat pocket for the keys and pointed across the hallway where the black room was. “It’s in there.” He shoved past them and fished out his keys, his hands strangely steady as he moved the painting of the river aside and then triggered the hidden lock. If he could get them the painting quickly, he could call an ambulance. As he opened the black room door and led them inside, Vain stayed close, but not too close that Wes could have pulled the gun from him. Of course, he wouldn’t have risked doing that. He needed to know what poison Vain had used.
“There. Take it.” He pointed at the Monet. “The real one.”
Vain handed Corrine the gun and she trained it on Wes while Vain walked up to the painting and studied it closely.
The colors, once so subtle and rich, had been a visual lullaby to him, easing an ache inside him he’d never known how to heal. That was before he’d met Callie. From the moment he’d seen her, she was like waking up from a dream and seeing reality for what it was. Brilliant smiles, tender kisses, warm bodies cuddled close by winter fires. And love. So much love that it hurt to imagine one second of a life without her. A Monet couldn’t compare to that.
“He’s right. It’s the real one.” Vain lifted the Monet off the wall hook and headed for the door. “Corrine, meet me at the car in two minutes. Only tell him about the poison after I’m out of the room.”
After Vain departed, Corrine kept her eye on her watch. When two minutes had passed, she began to back out of the room.
“Corrine!” Wes shouted, his voice breaking. “Tell me what he gave her.” He took one step forward, fear choking him. Callie was across the hall. Dying. Because he’d been a fool to underestimate the thief.
Corrine stopped at the door’s threshold, her cold eyes softening only a second.
“You really care about her. The mighty, impenetrable heart of Wesley Thorne can break after all.” She laughed. The cold sound raked over his ears.
“Please.” He would get on his knees if he needed to. He would do anything for Callie. “I love her more than anything in my entire life.” The words came out and he didn’t regret them. It took losing her to see that. He loved her. Not only that, but he belonged to her. She owned him as much as he owned her. He could never give another woman his heart.
“Jimsonweed. That’s what he slipped into her drink. She’ll need Valium if she starts to convulse. Have the doctors give her a purgative like magnesium sulfate.” Corrine backed out into the hall and then she bolted down it and out of sight.
Wes ran straight to the study and grabbed his phone. He dialed 911 and told the dispatcher to have the hospital send him a helicopter life flight. Then he wrapped a blanket around Callie and carried her from the study. He passed Bradley as he reached the front door. His butler was slowly getting up from the floor.
“Sir?” he said, voice shaky. “I think…someone is in the house. Someone came up behind me and knocked me out…I can’t remember.”
“Bradley, come with me. Callie’s been poisoned. The hospital is sending a chopper to get us. I want you checked out as well.”
Bradley opened the doors so Wes could carry Callie outside. A distant roar of a chopper gave him the barest glimmer of hope.
Callie’s lashes fluttered and for a second he saw her eyes. The pupils were dilated.
“Wes.” She lifted one hand as though to touch his cheek, but her hand fell limp into her lap and her head rolled back.
“No, baby, please hang on.” Tears cut like knives across his eyes as he held on to her. This was all his fault.
“Callie, listen to me. I can’t live without you. Do you hear me?” His voice broke as he clutched her tighter. A helicopter rose up over the trees and came overhead, slowly lowering to the ground.
Wes, with Callie in his arms, rushed to the paramedics who opened the doors and lifted a medical stretcher out. Bradley stepped back as the medics got to work strapping Callie in before they loaded her into the chopper. Then Wes and Bradley climbed inside.
The paramedics began to work on her and Wes shouted over the roar of the helicopter’s rotating blades what poison Callie had been drugged with. He watched as they inserted an IV into Callie’s arm to get fluids into her.
“Sir.” Bradley held out Wes’s phone. “You had better call her father. He should be flown in from Colorado immediately, just in case…”
Tears blotted out Wes’s vision, making it hard to see the numbers on his phone. He finally dialed. It was hard to hear, but he pressed one hand over his other ear.
“Hello?” Jim Taylor answered on the second ring.
“Jim, it’s Wes. There’s been a situation…” How could he tell the man that he might lose his daughter just like he’d lost his wife?
“Callie?” Jim’s voice was breathless, as though shock hit him hard. “What’s wrong?”
“Jim, you need to get to the airport. I’ll pay for a private charter to get you in twenty minutes.”
“God damn it.” The older man’s voice broke. “What happened to my baby girl?”
For a long second Wes struggled to find words.
“It’s a long story, Jim. I can’t tell you now. She’s been poisoned. We are on a life flight to the hospital.” Unable to speak anymore, he shoved the p
hone at Bradley who continued to speak to Jim.
Wes took Callie’s left hand and laced his fingers through hers, squeezing.
“Please stay strong, Callie. I need you. You can’t teach me to love and then abandon me.” He swiped a hand across his face and it came back wet with tears. He had lived a charmed life, everything at his fingertips.
Everything except love.
Love had found him and now he would lose it.
Chapter 26
Out of the darkness a gold light blossomed before Callie’s eyes. It grew from a tiny pinprick into an expanding horizon of glorious color. A shape loomed ahead. A sphinx. The warm stone was carved with familiar symbols. She reached out to touch it. Invisible fingers covered hers, squeezing lightly, then tighter. A breeze ruffled against her face, reminding her of the downy soft feathers of a bird.
“I can’t live without you.” The words were uttered so frantically, and were so wonderful.
“Can’t live without you,” she repeated, smiling deep inside. Why did she like those words? Who said them? Strange questions bounced through her mind, like a dozen bright tennis balls…bouncing away…The green court beneath them changed, deepened to a forest and the tennis balls shrunk to flashing fireflies. The thick scent of summer filled her lungs. She drew a deep breath, then looked about. Another pale yellow-green light shone through the gloom.
A lantern.
Four boys sat around the lantern. Small tents were erected behind them. They laughed and sang, roasting marshmallows over a tiny sputtering fire.
“I know you!” she cried out excitedly. The memories were so close, she could almost touch them. She ran toward them, but as she reached them, the boys were swallowed by the shadows. The small flames licking at the logs spit and crackled before the fire died. Gray smoke drifted up in serpentine coils before it vanished.
A loud roar, so loud. The sphinx was angry. It shook its head and clawed its paws in the desert sands. She tried to find it, but it was gone and the golden horizon was gone, too. She could still feel that invisible pressure on her hand as everything threatened to fade back into darkness.